Wolfson fellow Paul Aveyard makes significant discoveries in Covid-19 research

Published on
Tuesday 27 April 2021
Category
Health & Medicine
Wolfson People

Professor Paul Aveyard, Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson, led a recent Covid-19 study which found people with certain chronic respiratory diseases have a much lower chance of developing severe Covid-19 than previously thought. 

Unlike previous studies of people hospitalised with Covid-19, this research shows the risk of those with asthma and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is only modestly higher than those without. There was no evidence linking asthma with a higher risk of absolute death from Covid-19. 

Aveyard said, "At the start of the pandemic, the assumption that pre-existing respiratory diseases would lead to an increased risk of serious Covid-19 illness was reasonable. Covi-19 has quite rightly caused much anxiety in people with respiratory diseases. While our results do show this group are at higher risk from developing severe Covid-19, when you put this into context with other known risk factors for hospitalisation, the relative risk for those with chronic respiratory diseases are lower than the risk from being male or having diabetes, and are a small fraction of the everyday risk of death from any cause."